Then I wielded my makeup brushes like magic wands, and in another five minutes I was ready to face the day. Heavy eyeliner, dark shadow, luscious long lashes. I was still wearing my pentacle from the night before, and I decided to keep it on. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. And it might help. It had my birthstone, an amethyst, in its center, and ivy vines made of silver twisting around the circle that enclosed it. Each leg of the star was made of a tiny broomstick. I liked it, lapsed Wiccan or not.
Giving one final glance in the mirror, I headed out of my apartment. My boots protected my sore toe so I didn’t even limp. None of my bruises showed. No one would ever know what had happened last night.
Apparently not even me.
Sixteen blocks was a good brisk walk, and I loved it. I walked to work most of the winter. I walked it in the rain, when it wasn’t torrential. Today was gorgeous. Cool but sunny, and it smelled good outside for a change. I liked the neighborhood, the people I passed on the way, the excuse to get my heart and lungs working a little bit harder than normal. It was all good.
I passed the little convenience store where I used to buy my smokes and almost went inside. I even slowed my steps as I went by the door and, glancing in, saw my beloved Marlboro Light Menthols in their pretty white-and-green boxes, stacked inside a locked, clear plastic case. And the little lighters on the counter. I’d need one of those, too. Maybe just for today …
I stopped. I took one step into the doorway, and then I closed my eyes. It’s been three weeks. Three hellish, miserable weeks that I never want to go through again. If I buy a pack now, I’m going to have to go back to Day One. Start over. No. It’s got to get easier soon.
“Lucy?” said someone from inside the store.
My eyes popped open. A man stood just inside the entrance, facing me. And for a long moment I sort of locked onto his eyes and couldn’t look away. There was some kind of buzzing in my head, and my skin was cold and prickly.
“Hello,” he said.
His voice felt like warm fingers on my skin.
I feel his hands on my back.
I blinked myself out of whatever sort of idiot-haze I’d fallen into and tried to look at him the way I would normally look at any stranger who called me by the wrong name. He was gorgeous, that was for sure. Italian, or maybe Spanish. Sun-kissed bronze skin, hot Hershey Bar eyes, wide, kissable-looking lips, and a bod to die for underneath an all-black getup with—oh, shit, I was going straight to hell—a white tab at the front and center of his collar.
“I’m sorry, Father. I’m not Lucy. You must have me mixed up with someone—”
“Not Lucy,” he said, “Loosie.” As he said it the second time, he pointed to the counter, where another clear plastic container held loose cigarettes. The sign above them said, Loosies, $1 ea.
“Is that even legal?”
“I have no idea. If not, it won’t last long.”
“Still, a buck for a smoke? That’s effing highway robbery. Uh, sorry about the effing part. Habit.”
“When you’re trying to quit, you’d pay five bucks for just one, and you know it,” he said, a little humor in his tone and in his eyes.
My knees wobbled. I locked them.
“It’s effective, too. You give in to temptation once, but you do it without buying a whole pack and then feeling justified in smoking all twenty. Perfect solution. Weak moment, give in, and you’re still okay. Right?”
He made perfect sense. But I couldn’t tell him so, because my eyes were on the smooth skin of his neck above the forbidden collar, and the tiny bits of whisker he’d missed shaving this morning. I wanted to rub my cheeks against them.
“So? Loosie? It’ll be on me.” He pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his clerical black shirt and held it up, much the way I envisioned Eve holding that glossy red apple or pomegranate or whatever it had been, up to Adam.
I took it with a quick snatch. “Imagine a priest counseling me to give in to temptation.” Especially one who looks like he does. ‘Cause … damn.
Smiling a little, he pulled out a lighter, and I took a step backward so I could make immediate use of it. I flicked his Bic, smiling at the evil rhyme scheme that brought to mind. The flame rose up and danced like a tiny reminder of hellfire, and there wasn’t even a breeze to interfere. I held it to the tip of the slender white confection and drew in my first breath of carcinogenic smoke in three long weeks. Closing my eyes, I let my lips pull up at the corners in sheer bliss and blew the smoke slowly from them.
“Oh, that’s good,” I whispered. Then I opened my eyes and met the priest’s. “Thank you, Father.”
“You can call me Tomas.”
He pronounced it Toe-MAHS, with the accent on the “mahs.” Italian? Spanish? A priest, either way. As in forbidden. Hands off. Don’t even think about it.
“Thanks.” I took another puff, saluted him with the cigarette between my fingers, and turned to continue my walk to work, smoking all the way and pointedly ignoring the people who waved their hands in front of their faces and coughed big fake coughs when I passed them, even though they had plenty of room to give me a wider berth. “It’s still legal on the sidewalk, dumb-ass.”
“That’s quite a temper you have there.”
I frowned, turning around. That gorgeous priest was following me, just a couple of steps behind.
“I’m sorry. Was this your only one? Did you want to share?” No effing way. I looked at him, and my eyes tripped over the dimple in his cheek when he smiled. Okay, I’ll share.
“I have another. Just waiting to get to a spot with a little more room around it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the fake-coughers?”
“Not at all. Just see no need to offend everyone I pass on my way.”
“On your way to where?” I asked.
He hesitated just long enough that I knew something was off. This was not a chance encounter, and given the shit that had been going on with me, and the fact that I had no memory of a long section of last night, I got a little shiver right up my spine. I don’t know that I had any specific theory about what he might have had to do with it, but I was pretty sure there must be something.
Then he said, “Flowers. I need flowers.”
“Flowers.” I sucked in another drag. Half gone already. They really ought to make those loosies in 100s. If someone was desperate enough pay a buck for a smoke, they would certainly pay two for a longer one. “Just by coincidence, I work at a flower shop.”
“Which one?” he asked.
“Pink Petals. Four more blocks.”
He smiled. “May I walk with you?”
This man was not safe. There were a thousand voices whispering things in my head, and I couldn’t understand a single one of them, but being near him made them louder. And yet for some reason I heard myself tell him, “Suit yourself.”
So we walked. And the quiet got a little awkward, so I said, “What’s the occasion, Padre?”
“Occasion?”
“You’re looking for a florist. That usually suggests an occasion.” I puffed and savored, and figured his company was a small price to pay for the pleasure. Besides, his company wasn’t all that unpleasant.
“I just want to send